Governor Six
by Hotpoint
Summary: A man who doesn't like any of the alternatives presented to him chooses a better way in the aftermath of the Second Battle of Hoover Dam
1. Part I

_The Fallout Universe belongs to someone other than me. No infringement is intended, no profit is to be made and I'm just not worth the hassle of suing anyway unless you want a share of the wages of an underpaid Civil Servant._

* * *

 _"The Great Man Theory of history was popular in the 19th Century but fell from favour among historians as the nationalism, class struggles, ideological conflicts and resource wars of the 20th and 21st Centuries swept the old certainties aside. In the post-apocalyptic aftermath of the Great War however a number of remarkable individuals appeared whose deeds reshaped the nuclear wasteland, not only making them legends within their own lifetimes and inspiring others to rebuild the shattered world but also rehabilitating the old idea that it wasn't changed economic realities, new technologies or broad cultural trends that drove history it was great men after all._

 _The "Vault Dweller" and his grandson the "Chosen One", the so-called "Lone Wanderer" of what was once known as the Capital Wasteland and the equally famous "Sole Survivor" of the Commonwealth all not only wrote their names in history they shaped it around them as they went._

 _Greater than any of them however was the man who first gained fame as "The Courier" before ability, determination and ambition earned him new titles and fame everlasting._

 **A.J.P. Carr** ** _The History of Post-War America_** **(New Adytum: Republic Press, 2398)**

* * *

 **Freeside – New Vegas - The Mojave – March 11th 2283**

Some of the teeming crowd only came for the free food being handed out by the Kings, others just out of curiosity or to see the girls from Gomorrah dancing up on stage in skimpy outfits, but most of those assembled there from throughout the Mojave genuinely wanted to show their support.

The Chairmen had built the imposing wooden stage set up directly in front of the gate to the Vegas Strip and as a result their leader Swank had the best seat in the house, front row centre between Cachino the boss of the Omertas and Majorie from the White Glove Society. The two men were smiling and joking together like they were old friends but both were packing heat under their suit jackets in case the other started something, old rivalries that dated all the way back to when they were tribals from warring clans died hard. Sat with them in order to display the unity of the Three Families in this endeavour the expression on Marjorie's face and her failure to join in the conversation however clearly signalled her personal distain for both of the gauche ruffians.

Almost anyone with any power or influence in the region was in attendance. The movers and shakers of the Mojave sat on the rows of chairs set up in front of the stage while a far greater number without seating, those the White Glove Society called the "Hoi polloi and riff-raff", watched from further back.

Francine Garret and her brother James were using the opportunity to try and network, discussing the possibility of matching the purchasing power of the larger casinos through a syndicated procurement deal for food and alcohol with the saloons in Goodsprings and Boulder City and the Vikki and Vance Casino in Primm. Trudy was certainly interested in the idea, the safer roads had meant increased numbers of customers and a higher turnover of stock anyway, so they all agreed to meet at the Atomic Wrangler for a proper discussion the next day before she headed back home.

After the Gomorrah girls finished their dance routine, Marjorie to be heard muttering throughout that it was vulgar to the point of being practically pornographic, stage hands quickly set up microphones and the comedians Billy Knight and Hadrian the Ghoul arrived in order to warm up the crowd and get everyone in high spirits. They recycled a lot of material from their popular "Smoothskin and Zombie" comedy routine but the vast majority of the audience would have never watched them perform it before at The Aces anyway and they soon had the majority laughing at the good jokes and groaning at the bad.

The King of course was far too cool to laugh, even at the better material, but he did audibly groan at the joke, "My ghoul-friends got no nose", "Your ghoul-friends got no nose? How does she smell?", "Awful". In doing so he went up considerably in Marjorie's estimation having already pleased her to learn he maintained excellent personal hygiene and dressed with some style, especially given that he was sat directly behind her in the second row.

Following on after the comedians finished their routine and vacated the stage another human and ghoul double act took over the job of getting the crowd in the right mood. This duo comprising the singers Tommy Torini and Dean Domino performing a well-rehearsed variety act was a real hit as they sang a medley of classic pre-war songs interspersed with a few jokes of their own. Dean, who as usual performed the whole set with a glass of scotch in his hand, had recently been offered and accepted a contract to sing at the Shark Club in New Reno. He had signed enthusiastically, the pay being noticeably better than he was getting at The Aces, but he had told Mr Bishop that he had to do this pro-bono gig first because he owed it to the man who had not only saved his life but had got him back into show business.

While Marjorie had disliked the entertainment until now she found she rather enjoyed Dean's crooning in particular and thought it a terrible shame that the man was an unsightly ghoul because otherwise she would have suggested he take employment at the Ultra Luxe. After all, according to reliable sources he had been hired by billionaire Frederick Sinclair to entertain the cream of pre-war society at the famous Sierra Madre casino, thus proving Mr Domino to be at the very top of his profession and therefore worthy of her select clientele. Perhaps he might be persuaded to hide his face behind a Society Mask when performing, she wondered, thinking that might pass muster.

After performing their last song Dean raised his glass in salute to the audience's uproarious applause, theatrically winked at Marjorie as the only woman in the front row who found herself blushing as a result to her huge embarrassment, and then headed off stage, leaving Torini up there alone.

Tommy Torini applauded the other singer himself and then raised his hands to hush the crowd. 'They say some men are born great while others have greatness thrust upon them' he began to speak, 'but here in Vegas we do things differently' he said, smiling. 'It's now my great privilege to introduce to you the man who has made this country a better place for our children to grow up in' he told the seated dignitaries and the heaving masses behind them. 'The man who crushed the Vipers and the Jackals so we can now walk the highways unmolested by raider thugs' he said. 'The man who rid this town of the Fiend threat by decapitating their leadership' he continued then paused, '… literally' he added, grinning at the resultant chorus of cheers and laughter.

Torini raised his voice for emphasis, one advantage of being a singer by profession was having a decent set of pipes. 'The man, no the _hero_ , who cut down Caesar in his own tent and sent those Legion slaver sons-of-bitches running back to Arizona with their tails between their stupid mini-skirts' he thundered, raising one arm in the arm fist clenched, the cheering now becoming wild. 'The man who wasn't born great or had it thrust upon him but had it _shot it into his goddamn head!_ ' he exclaimed, voice getting louder and louder as he attempted to be heard over the crowd. 'Ladies and Gentlemen I present to you, _the next Governor of The State of Mojave…_ '

'COURIER SIX, COURIER SIX, COURIER SIX' the crowd were already chanting too loudly to hear Torini as the man of the hour himself got up on stage, shook hands with the entertainer and took his place behind the microphone.

'Hi, I'm the Courier and I'm here to deliver a message of hope for a better future' the most famous man from Two-Sun to the Angel's Boneyard introduced himself to the huge election rally organised in his support, the resulting explosion in cheering and applause meaning he had to pause for several minutes before continuing. He might have a reputation for being a smart-ass know-it-all, and people commented, and not without cause, that he was always trying to be at the centre of anything even mildly important that was happening _anywhere_ , but even his worst critics had to admit he was damn popular.

'They say that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas but I need your help to make sure that's not the case this time' the man they called _The_ Courier told the crowd. 'Robert House and I have negotiated a treaty that will see The Mojave to join the NCR not as some lawless frontier or conquered territory like Baja but as a fully-fledged member-state with its own government' he announced. 'A state the equal of Boneyard, Dayglow or Shady itself!' he declared.

Swank, Cachino and the King immediately leapt up from their chairs and started to clap, the rest of the seated audience immediately following them as the crowd joined in, although Marjorie of course moved slowly with the required decorum of a lady and she clapped her gloved hands softly as good manners dictates.

'I want to build a Mojave that retains control of its own internal affairs while still benefitting from all the protections and opportunities that the Republic offers all its citizens' Courier Six continued once the applause died down again and the dignitaries had re-taken their seats. 'But if we're going to do that we need to form a proper, organised government here first' he told them. 'A government elected _by_ the people of the Mojave that will stand up _for_ the people of the Mojave' he said with evident passion. 'I believe I can lead that government for you, help steer us all towards a better future' he told the audience with sincerity, 'and I hope with all my heart that you believe in me enough too that you'll cast your vote my way in the election next month.'

Just before he came on stage dozens of placards had been handed out painted with the slogans "Vote Courier" and the somewhat more inspired "I believe in the Couriers message" and these were now being held aloft above the crowd. Press photographers from the larger cities of the NCR jockeyed for the best position so they could frame some of the placards with the Courier himself, this was going to be big news back home too.

'Forget the governorship of the Mojave, when are you going to run for President of the NCR?' an off-duty soldier in uniform called out from the crowd. 'I'd vote for you' she added to more cheering.

'Okay who leaked my long-term master-plan?' The Courier responded curtly, looking dead serious for a moment before breaking out into a broad grin. 'Seriously though, one election at a time please' he requested. 'I'm not even in the pocket of the brahmin barons yet and isn't that pretty much a pre-requisite of the job these days?' he added humorously although there was enough truth in that statement for it to hit home with anyone who hailed from the Republic.

'Whose pocket _are_ you in then?' a heckler called out, there were always a few in every large crowd.

'Nobodies, My Friend' Courier Six replied earnestly. 'Even if you don't believe the brahmin-shit that I'm some kind of messiah sent to save the wasteland, or that I'm the incorruptible paragon of the Mojave, let's face it I'm too damn rich to bribe anyway' he retorted. 'I'm the guy they've banned from playing blackjack at every casino back there on The Strip because I was taking too much money off them' he declared, pointing back towards the huge gate behind him.

'It's true, the card-counting bastard' Swank yelled out to laughter.

Courier laughed himself. 'Come on man' he continued to address the heckler. 'Haven't you heard those stories that I use Legion coins for shotgun ammo, light my cigars with NCR hundred dollar bills and use gold bars as freaking paperweights?' he asked rhetorically. 'Only last week Robert House came to me asking for a loan and I pay Heck Gunderson to do my laundry' he joked. 'Stupid brahmin-punching son-of-bitch uses too much starch' he complained, shaking his head sadly in a theatrical manner as the crowd roared with laughter again.

Watching from their own vantage point behind the stage Veronica turned to Arcade. 'He really _does_ use gold bars for paperweights' she observed quietly. 'And according to Boone he first brought down Caesar by blasting coin-shot made of Legion denarii into his chest.'

'The coin shot was just so he could "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's" but you're right about the paperweight too though' Arcade agreed. 'The cigar thing is crap though, he doesn't smoke.'

'Yup, the man definitely needs more vices' Cass interjected. 'He doesn't hardly drink either' she said disparagingly.

'He doesn't drink that moonshine you make with acid from freaking _fission battery_ as one of the ingredients but nobody with any sense _would_ ' Veronica countered.

'You don't know what you're missing' Cass told them, taking a sip of her latest batch from her hip flask.

'I know _exactly_ what I'm missing' Veronica replied. 'Radiation sickness and going blind' she said with certainty before returning her attention to the man speaking on stage.

'Now I know some of you don't think we should join the NCR at all' the Courier got back on track with his speech, unhooking the microphone from the stand and starting to walk around with it. 'You're worried about paying taxes and having soldiers from Junktown or The Hub sticking their noses into your business telling you what to do' he said. 'Well I'll clear a few things up about that, starting with the soldiers' he assured those listening.

If you've ever visited a city in the Core Region you'll already know they don't have martial law there like they've been enforcing here' he said. 'In Boneyard, Dayglow and Shady it's locally elected lawmen who keep the peace, not trigger-happy conscripts toting assault rifles' he told them. 'It'll be exactly the same here' he continued, 'well apart from the New Vegas Police Department making the criminals they throw behind bars sing "Jailhouse Rock" anyway, right King?' he asked, looking down towards where the man was sitting.

'You said it man, Viva New Vegas PD!' The King called back in good humour, the pair of them having already discussed the future of law and order in the city long and hard. The Three Families were too disliked by much of the population, and too distrustful of each other for that matter, for the notion of any of _their_ enforcers being given authority to meet out justice to work. The best alternative in the short-to-medium term was therefore putting together an interim police force made up largely of King's members and the Westside Militia who tended to be liked and trusted by the majority of the New Vegas citizenry.

The Courier stopped for a moment when a small insect, probably a mosquito from the noise it made, buzzed around him. He swatted the thing and pretended to be looking at its tiny corpse in his hand. 'Didn't know who he was fucking with' he joked before frowning. 'Cazadore stung me once' he told the crowd, a serious expression on his face. 'The paralysis and sweats began almost straight away and then a few minutes later the convulsions started' he continued. 'Agonising' he recalled, 'pain like you wouldn't believe' he said sadly. 'In the end I was so sorry for the poor fucker I had to put him out of his misery' he declared, entirely unable to keep a straight face for more than a few seconds afterwards as the audiences responded with groans and laughter. 'Yeah, yeah, I know, even the ghoul comedian told jokes that weren't that old' he apologised.

'If you deliver mail as badly as you deliver a punchline I can see why you're after a new job' Veronica yelled out as loudly as she could.

'Okay, okay everyone stop reaching for the rotten mutfruit to pelt me with, I'll stop trying to be funny' Courier Six promised. 'Okay, getting back to taxes, the way I see it is we should pay them like everyone else' he stated firmly, knowing that it wouldn't be a popular notion but that didn't make it wrong. 'Taxes will pay for schools and hospitals, they'll pay to fix the power-lines, irrigate the desert, get the railroads running and they'll pay for the police and soldiers that will keep us safe' he said, explaining his position. 'We'll pay our Federal Taxes to the bureaucrats in Shady because people in the Mojave might be frugal but that doesn't make us cheap or looking for handouts without paying our fair share like moochers do' he continued. 'But the way I _also_ see it' he said, voice growing louder, 'is that its power from Hoover Dam that lights their cities and that's _our_ dam that does that not theirs' he declared. 'So when I'm governor my administration is going to provide free power to everyone in the Mojave but the rest of the NCR will have to pay for it' he told the crowd, 'and I'll use that money to make sure we have the _lowest_ _state taxes in the Republic!_ ' he practically bellowed into the microphone to another round of wild cheering and applause.

The Courier smiled with satisfaction. Nobody liked taxes but were always more palatable if you knew some other poor bastard was paying a lot more of them than you and he wasn't getting any more back from the government in return than you were he thought to himself

Positioned on a rooftop overlooking the election rally Craig Boone scanned the other rooftops and the windows of the surrounding buildings through the telescopic sight of his rifle. The Kings were providing most of the security presence below, they were a lot less intimidating than a bunch of Securitrons would have been, but the sniper had insisted on keeping overwatch himself too. 'I got zip' he said. 'You?' he asked the man kneeling beside him.

Manny Vargas lowered his binoculars. 'Nothing' he replied. 'You don't really believe the Legion will attempt a hit on him do you?'

'They might' Boone replied, still looking through his scope. Assassination might not be Lanius's style, he thought, but that slippery, underhanded bastard Vulpes was still out there somewhere in too, he knew.

According to intelligence reports from Arizona, Lanius and Vulpes were involved in an ongoing power struggle to seize the Caesar's former throne, an internal conflict verging on outright civil war that had paralysed what was left of the Legion politically. Taking out the man on the stage below who had infamously finished off the already mortally wounded Caesar by slitting his throat with a combat knife while whispering "Sic semper tyrannis" in his ear might well tip the balance in Vulpes favour. As an act of retribution it would certainly bring more Centurions to his side at least, the veneration of Caesar being buried deep in the Legion's psyche and their desire for revenge palpable.

Vargas raised his binoculars again. 'Listen man, I want to thank you for this' he said awkwardly. 'I know things have been rough between us the last couple of years…'

'I needed a trained spotter, maybe another gun if things got bad' Boone cut him off.

'I get that, it's just that it means a lot that you asked me' Vargas persisted.

Boone's expression was as impassive as ever behind his scope. 'I don't forgive or forget but I'm trying to let things go so they don't eat me up inside these days' he said then sighed. 'And if you're going to keep fucking Arcade I'd better get used to seeing you around the Lucky 38 more anyway' he added flatly . 'Also, in future lock the goddamn door or hang a sign on it or something' he growled.

Manny Vargas tried not to laugh. 'Arcade said he'd bet you wouldn't have looked that horrified if you'd walked in on Veronica and Christine.'

Boone made a non-committal sound and scanned the crowd through his scope again. At least if anyone down there pulled a gun even if The Kings missed it the robots would be all over the gunman before they could get off an aimed shot he reasoned, watching ED-E 1 and ED-E 2 hovering around with "VOTE COURIER" bumper stickers plastered on them.

Down behind the stage Veronica joined in the applause as Courier Six finally finished his speech and everyone looked up at the Lucky 38 Tower to watch the promised fireworks and laser light show due to start now the sun was going down. 'Think he'll win the election?' she asked Arcade.

'They're giving eight-to-one odds against anyone else winning at Gomorrah, eleven-to-one at The Tops' Arcade replied. 'This is Vegas, the house always wins' he said with a smile.

'Not always, sometimes he just has to go with the flow' Veronica quipped, wondering just how Robert House up there in the tower really felt about all this? All those years of scheming and some glorified delivery boy arrives at his door, hears his plan, goes away to think about it and comes back with a ten page document summarising a better one the day after.

Courier Six was undeniably brilliant, charismatic and actually a pretty decent guy when you came down to it, but even his closest friends complained that his excessive competence at anything he turned his hand to could be really damn irritating sometimes. That was why they liked to make a special effort to keep him grounded with his ego kept under control, or at least that was the excuse they gave when yanking his chain anyway.

'So how was the speech?' The Courier asked his friends brightly, practically bouncing down the stairs from the stage. 'I thought it went well' he decided, feeling upbeat about the whole thing.

'It sucked' Veronica replied, deadpan.

'I was going to say it blew' Arcade told him, playing along with her.

Courier Six looked at them askance. 'How can anything suck and blow simultaneously?' he asked reasonably.

'Ah ha, so is there _is_ something you can't figure out!' Veronica exclaimed. 'Stop the presses, polymath genius created by freak accident finally stumped by question.'

'It was a freak occurrence or event, not a freak accident' Courier Six corrected her, 'Accident would imply I wasn't intentionally shot in the head, which I was' he said. 'It was my _survival_ that was unintentional' he pointed out.

'Jeez, are you _always_ on?' Veronica asked, rolling her eyes before playfully sticking out her tongue at him when he glared at her.

Arcade chuckled. 'Just remember in the future when you're surrounded by sycophants only after your money or political influence that we liked you first' he requested.

'Yes, we wub you the mostest' Veronica declared, throwing her arms around Six and hugging him while trying not to laugh.

Cass joined in and hugged him too, mostly because she saw how aggravated he was by it. 'Hey Six, is that is gun in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?' she asked as she encountered a hard bulge in his clothing.

'It's a Compliance Regulator, now get off me before I use it' The Courier replied curtly, trying to push them both off him as the fireworks started to launch from the top of the Lucky 38. 'Hey, I just had an idea' he said suddenly. 'Do you think I can get the Boomers to drag an election banner for me through the sky with their B-29?' he suggested.

'They might, but there's still no frigging way I'm going to ask Elder McNamara if he can get the guys we've got helping the NCR patrol the I-15 and Highway 95 to put those "Vote Courier" bumper stickers on their Power Armour' Veronica replied firmly.

* * *

 ** _Note from the author:  
_**  
 _An awful lot of questions you might have will get answered in Part II so if you're familiar with Fallout: New Vegas but still feeling a tad confused don't worry._


	2. Part II

_The Fallout Universe belongs to someone other than me. No infringement is intended, no profit is to be made and I'm just not worth the hassle of suing anyway unless you want a share of the wages of an underpaid Civil Servant._

* * *

 _"All primitive tribes have their legends, often woven deep into the fabric of their societies. Even after decades of trying Caesar was still never able to completely rid his followers of all the superstitions of the multitude of former tribes they hailed from, and new legends still formed such as that of the "Burned Man"._

 _Even after being civilised into the Three Families by Robert House, the former Boot Riders, Slither Kin and Sawneys that had been reborn as Chairmen, Omertas and the White Glove Society still told the old stories to the children. They spoke of an age when Old Vegas was a realm of sorcery, of a time when powerful mages such as the brothers Siegfried and Roy could make fearsome animals vanish and then reappear in the blink of an eye and they spoke in hushed tones of Copperfield, the greatest magician of them all, who it was said could walk through walls._

 _The greatest legend of the Vegas tribes however was that of the man who had come from the West long ago and stripped the great casinos of their wealth, not by theft or sorcery but by his wits alone._

 _Prophecy also said that when Vegas was rebuilt, the night skies of the great city once more as bright as day and the casinos were restored to their glory that the "Rain Man" would return..."_

 **Tom Hoffman,** ** _The Myths and Legends of the Southwestern Tribes_** **(New Adytum: Republic Press, 2326)**

* * *

 **Governor's Mansion (Formerly House Resort) - Mojave Free State - April 23rd 2283**

Ambassador Crocker arrived to find most of the tents had already been packed up and only a handful of NCR Rangers and a slightly larger number of troopers from the Republic's regular army were still there loading crates into pre-war trucks. With the Legion no longer ambushing convoys it was safe enough to risk some of the NCR's limited stock of salvaged and repaired vehicles on the roads of the Mojave greatly improving the army's logistics and ability to redeploy units at faster than marching pace.

With both sides of the Colorado now in NCR hands, and the Legion pushed at least another twenty-five miles back into Arizona all along the river, what had been Camp Golf was now redundant as a military base being too far back from the front lines to even be useful as a supply dump. As such the request from the new governor of what most regarded as only an interim independent Mojave state to take over the buildings had been agreed and the locals were moving in as the Rangers moved out.

'Put your backs into it you malingering fucks' a grizzled middle-aged soldier wearing sergeant's stripes bellowed at a few of his troops that seemed to be slacking off from working. 'We need to get all this shit over the dam and unpacked at Fort Vae Victis by sundown' he reminded them, stopping to offer Crocker a half-hearted salute when he noticed and recognised the government official.

Crocker couldn't help but note how the name The Courier had suggested for what had been Caesar's base at Fortification Hill had caught on with the NCR's military at the expense of the official "Camp Kimball". Vae Victis, woe to the vanquished, though naturally without the v's pronounced like w's as the Legion would have given their adherence to Classical Latin.

He couldn't exactly blame the soldiers though, Camp Kimball sounded somewhere you'd send your kids to get rid of them during their summer vacation from school, he decided, as the newly elected leader of the "Mojave Free State" came bounding out of the old hotel building to meet him.

'Mr Governor' Crocker greeted him with a slight bow.

'I'll do you a deal, unless it's an official function in public you go back to calling me "Six" like everyone else does and I'll call you Dennis okay?' the Governor of the Mojave requested.

'I'm not sure that's the correct protocol' Crocker replied uncertainly.

'Don't make me declare you persona non grata and have you deported Dennis' Courier Six threatened, smiling.

'Well if you put it that way Six I guess I'll have to accept the lack of formality' Crocker agreed with a smile of his own. 'We're still moving out then?' he observed, indicating the NCR soldiers.

'I told Colonel Hsu there was no rush' Courier Six replied. 'It'll take us weeks to get this place properly set up anyway' he told the Republic's Ambassador to the Free State. 'I'm still living at the Lucky 38 until then, even if my desk is here already' he said. 'Come in, I'll find someone to make us some coffee' he added, leading off with Crocker following.

While a few NCR soldiers were still present it was made very clear who owned the building now when Crocker encountered a pair of securitrons guarding the entrance and another outside the Governor's office inside, all with "Mojave State Militia" stencilled on them. 'When we join the Republic I'm getting those helmets changed to look like NCR ones' Courier Six remarked, indicating the old pre-war US Army helmets currently depicted on the robots screens.

'Isn't that still "if" not "when" you join the Republic' Crocker observed as they entered the office, Courier Six taking a seat at his desk as the ambassador sat opposite. 'You must have read some of the things being said by our congress about the concessions you're demanding before you'll bring the Mojave into the NCR?' he queried.

'My favourite was the Honourable Senator for Dayglow saying that it was bad enough that I expected them to bend over, but demanding they meekly pass me the soap first was just too goddamn much' Courier Six quoted, grinning. 'Sammy can you bring us in two coffees please' he called out loudly.

'Right away Mr Governor" a young girl called back.

'It's not funny Six' Crocker persisted, 'President Kimball can veto any new treaty even if Congress does agree the terms' he reminded him.

'Putting it frankly. When you've got them by the balls their hearts and minds soon follow' The Courier replied. 'If the rest of the NCR don't want us to join because they'll have to pay us for our electricity then they can damn well pay us three times as much for it as a sovereign nation' he said.

'That will be seen as blackmail Mr Governor' Crocker replied, deciding it was a time for formal titles again. 'Any government that would utilise such methods to gain political advantage is beneath contempt.'

Courier Six sighed. 'Ambassador, need I remind you that the New California Republic once clandestinely hired mercenaries to put pressure on Vault City in order to push them towards joining you' he pointed out. 'Compared to that sort of despicable, underhanded chicanery my being a little ruthless in wangling a better deal for the people that elected me is nothing' he maintained.

'That was forty years ago and the NCR formally apologised after a full investigation of the affair by the Senate' Crocker protested. 'We would never behave that way these days' he insisted.

'You might not personally but I'll bet I could find plenty of politicians in Shady Sands that would' The Courier countered. 'I'm not even criticising, that would make me a hypocrite given I can be more than a bit Machiavellian myself these days, I'm just saying that's how the world works and I work within it.'

Crocker pursed his lips. 'I've got to ask were you this much of a cynic _before_ you got shot in the head?' he asked, genuinely curious.

'I'm still missing a lot of my long-term memory from before two years back so I honestly couldn't tell you' Courier Six replied with a shrug. 'There might well have been a personality change due to the brain trauma, that's actually a _far_ more common result than the other effects it had on me, but I know I'd already spent plenty of years travelling around before I got a job with the Mojave Express, and walking the wasteland doesn't exactly breed optimists' he noted before smiling. 'That's one of the main reasons I want us to join the NCR you know, the Core Region still produces a few of them like yourself.'

'Your coffee Governor' a teenage girl wearing a pre-war dress and carrying a tray with two mugs on it announced from the doorway. Courier Six kept an open door policy in his office, he considered it good for preventing a chasm forming between the governor and the governed.

'Thank you Sammy, put the tray down on the desk would you please' The Courier requested. 'Sorry it's in mugs' he apologised to Crocker, 'I'm still trying to wheedle one of Robert House's antique sets of fine china out of him for the mansion' he said. 'It's not like he's using them anyway' he noted as the girl entered and put down the tray.

Crocker couldn't help but notice the girl almost seemed to have an expression of adoration for Courier Six on her face as she carefully placed the tray down and left quietly. 'You've been hiring staff I see' he remarked, taking up his coffee.

'I can't do _everything_ myself' The Courier replied. 'She's a sweet girl, I saved her and her family from a slave pen at Cottonwood Cove' he told the ambassador, 'that was before I dumped several barrels of radioactive waste on the place of course' he added. 'After what they did to Searchlight I couldn't resist the symmetry of it' he explained his course of action, looking a little smug about it.

That would explain the way she looked at him anyway Crocker decided, sipping at his coffee. One of the things he had been desperately trying to get across to his government back in Shady was that these days the region seemed to be more deeply infested with people that owed Courier Six their lives than it was with radscorpions. Trying to undermine the new governor's position through propaganda or other political manoeuvring would be an exercise in futility, the man wasn't popular he was _beloved_.

Moreover he was a beloved leader with a robot army backing him up, not to mention artillery support, a strategic bomber… and those _really_ disturbing rumours that the nuclear missiles he had launched from The Divide into Legion territory weren't actually _all_ of the ICBM's under his control.

When you came right down to it the man was probably right when he had said "When you've got them by the balls their hearts and minds soon follow" because no matter what he asked for, and how much of a pain in the ass he might be, the NCR was still probably better off having him inside pissing out than outside pissing in.

Sammy Weathers had picked up a broom and was now sweeping the corridor outside the governor's office, she didn't want to go too far in case he wanted anything else but it would be wrong to just stand about idle when she was being paid.

Her father was back farming again having taken over the old Brooks Ranch North-West of New Vegas and he was trying to prove to her mother that he had changed, no longer being the man they ran away from. So far her mother was being understandably cautious but if he managed to stick to it for a few more months she had told Sammy she might be willing to give him another chance.

With her little brother Kenny attending the school the Followers had established to teach the children of Freeside he wasn't bringing in an income and with both her parents barely scraping by Sammy had really needed a job. She had been offered work waiting tables at the Atomic Wrangler but after a couple of evenings of wearing a skirt so short she had to hide it from her mother and being groped by drunks she had quit. It would have been bad enough without the memories of being stripped and inspected by the slave-master at Cottonwood Cove but with them it was unbearable.

Then one day Arcade Gannon, visiting the Old Mormon Fort as he often did to see old friends, had pinned a help wanted notice on the gates and three days later Sammy found herself working for the man who had saved her and the whole Mojave from Caesar.

She liked her new job she thought with a smile, still industriously sweeping away as Dennis Crocker left and headed back to the NCR Embassy on the Strip. Sammy had been born and raised in the Republic, her father used to own a small farm near Junktown before moving them to New Vegas, so she was pleased that the governor wanted the Mojave to become a member state. They hadn't ever been rich but even being poor in the NCR meant more safety, opportunities and security than most people had enjoyed outside its borders.

'You can clear away the coffee tray now Sammy' The Courier told her, emerging from his office with a marksman carbine slung over his shoulder. 'The shelves could probably do with a dusting too' he continued, 'the NCR Rangers might be fearless but they're not fastidious when it comes to keeping the place clean and tidy' he said with a smile. 'If anyone wants me I'm going for a walk out to the lake' he told her.

'Should you be going out there without a bodyguard Sir?' Sammy asked quickly.

'I don't really need one, I've got my rifle, but I'll take the Eddies just in case' Courier Six replied. 'Where are they anyway?' he asked, realising he hadn't seen them around recently.

'I saw them chasing each other around the outside of the Mansion again earlier, they might still be playing I guess?' Sammy theorised. 'They _are_ playing aren't they?' she asked. 'I didn't used to think robots did that.'

'One pretends to be RALPHIE, an eyebot like them from an old pre-war kids show on television, the other one pretends to be General Winters who hunted the robot in the show' The Courier explained. 'They take turns being RALPHIE because he's the hero he added.

Sammy pursed her lips. 'But how do you _know_ that's what they're doing?' she queried.

'I asked them and they told me' Courier Six replied matter-of-factly.

'But they don't talk, all they do is beep' Sammy responded quizzically. 'Can you understand them because of the… you know, your weird brain thing?' she asked awkwardly.

'No, I can understand them because of a whole bunch of circuitry from the Big Mountain Research and Development Centre that got stuck in here later' The Courier told her, tapping the side of his head. 'Well actually most of it is over here' he corrected himself, tapping the other side. Thanks to Doctor Usanagi he also had logic co-processor attached to his cerebral cortex, a probability calculator on his frontal lobe, an optics enhancer behind his eyes and an empathy synthesiser interfaced with his prefrontal cortex all of which added to the bullet injuries made X-Rays of his skull look _very_ unusual.

Sammy blinked. 'Aren't you kinda embarrassed to tell people you're…' she paused, not knowing how to phrase it politely.

'A guy with a lot of cyborg upgrades and replacement parts, plus oddly beneficial brain damage?' Courier Six saved her again, if from embarrassment this time not the Legion. 'Anybody paying attention is going to notice something's off about me pretty quick, why not be open about it?' he asked rhetorically. 'I'm still human where it counts.'

'Yes, you've got a good heart' Sammy agreed, smiling at him.

The Courier laughed. 'Better than the original anyway, it's a cybernetic replacement too' he said. If you checked me for a pulse you wouldn't find one because it's a continuous flow pump, but I know what you mean' he told her.

'No pulse?' Sammy exclaimed.

Courier Six shook his head. 'Put a stethoscope to my chest and there's no heart-beat, just a sort-of humming sound coming from the pump' he told her. 'If it's really quiet you can even hear it without a stethoscope sometimes' he told her then laughed again. 'Sarah thought there was something wrong with the air-conditioning in her room in Vault 21 the first night I stayed over after getting back from the Big MT' he recalled. Not that his girlfriend had minded his improved cardio-vascular performance earlier that night however he kept to himself.

Sammy inwardly sighed and tried not to let her feelings show on her face. It seemed no matter how smart they were men always seemed to want a curvy blonde with big hair who giggled at their jokes she thought sadly.

'So I'll see you later' The Courier told her, heading outside and yelling out for ED-E and his identical copy, both eye-bots appearing almost right away and greeting him with a lot of happy beeping as Sammy went to retrieve the coffee tray and clean up the Governor's Office.

As he wandered down towards Lake Las Vegas, ED-E 1 and ED-E 2 flanking him as protection, Courier Six's mind started to wander too. He had come a long way both literally and metaphorically since he woke up with the mother-of-all-headaches on Doc Mitchell's couch in Goodsprings, and the fact he could actually grasp mathematically just how much of a vanishingly unlikely turn of events had brought him to this point threatened to give him another headache.

It had all started when he was faced with the old Vit-o-matic Vigor Tester in Mitchell's treatment room. Finding himself curious how it worked he had quizzed Mitchell about it, the doctor explaining that the gadget measured things like eyesight, hearing, muscle mass etc. and fed the results though a set of algorithms to determine a score from one to ten based on the scores of a very large sample group taken by psychologists and medical physicians before the Great War.

Everything was going normally at first. His strength and endurance were better than average, as you would expect from a man that led an active lifestyle as a wasteland courier, and his eyesight and hearing were pretty good too he was glad to learn.

Intelligence was measured using the Wechsler IQ scale Mitchell told him. Most people's Intelligence Quotient measured between ninety and a hundred and ten, which converted to a score of between four and six on the Vit-o-matic. Moving towards the top of the scale one person in a thousand was said to be "Extremely Gifted" with an IQ over 147, translating to an impressive score of eight, and one person in thirty thousand was determined to have a genius-level IQ over 160 which would give you a nine.

Statistically there were likely only a handful of people in the whole of post-apocalypse North America with the one-in-a-million IQ of 171+ needed to max out the scale, Mitchell had told his patient, so don't worry if you don't score a perfect ten he joked.

Courier Six had looked at the Vit-o-matic screen displaying his results for a moment and then pointed at it asking what an eleven meant.

According to Doc Mitchell it meant "Holy shit! I didn't even know that was fucking possible!" apparently.

The Courier's memories were badly fragmented but he still knew damn well he hadn't been that smart before getting shot in the head, Mitchell even observed "Look at that. Maybe them bullets done your brain some good" only to be told there was no maybe about it.

And so after a few more tests Courier Six walked out into the Mojave and started to pursue the men who tried to kill him and then dumped him in a shallow grave.

Once he got over his almost complete lack of childhood memories, and a general sense of disconnection from the first thirty-seven years of his life, The Courier soon found his new ability to memorise any book or journal he came across, and in Cass's words "out-think the fucking shit out of everyone" was pretty useful. He soon started blazing a trail across the wasteland, solving most problems with his wits and occasionally with a gun while having a lot of conversations with people that went "How the hell did you do that?", "My brain goes up to eleven".

Some months after regaining consciousness in Goodsprings it had been the Followers-of-the-Apocalypse based at the Old Mormon Fort who had provided a name for Couriers condition, although even they had been forced to refer back to their group's main headquarters in Boneyard for the information because it was too rare to be worth mentioning in any of the standard, or indeed the advanced medical texts. Even before the Great War of 2077 the overwhelming majority of specialist neuro-scientists would have never encountered something as infrequently seen as "Acquired Savant Syndrome", with only about three dozen cases ever documented and recorded in the whole history of medical science.

Examples mentioned in the Follower's archival research including people who had developed an eidetic memory, mathematical brilliance and even mastery of music or art. In the Courier's specific case, and at the incidental expense of much of his pre-trauma long-term memory, a pair of nine-millimetre bullets fired into his skull at close range had given him a one-in-twelve- _billion-_ equivalent IQ score of 196 on the Wechsler Scale, plus perfect recall of anything he did _post_ -trauma.

Acquired Savant Syndrome. Putting a name to his condition had greatly pleased Courier Six, and after thanking the Followers he had headed straight to the Lucky 38 to tell his friends about it. This quickly proved a mistake however because Veronica henceforth started referring to the twin bullet scars on his head as his "ASS-holes".

No more finding pretty dresses for her.

Explaining it to Christine at the Sierra Madre hadn't gone down too well either and after a few drinks she still tended to complain about it to anyone listening. This was perhaps understandable given that her own brain trauma had left her with what amounted to extremely severe dyslexia while "the fucking mailman lucked out like a guy winning the Nipton lottery ten times in a row".

On the positive side remembering when Courier Six had dragged a bound and gagged Elijah into her room and passed her the remote detonator for the exploding slave collar around his neck always put a smile on Christine's face, albeit an evil one that her facial scars only made look more forbidding. One thing the former elder of the Mojave Chapter of the Brotherhood of Steel had never planned for was the consequence of his super-mutant minion "Dog" kidnapping someone inordinately better at figuring out high-tech machinery and rewriting old-world computer code than he was.

Recalling how he had forced Elijah to haul all the gold bars up out of the Sierra Madre vault before handing him over to Christine, the megalomaniacal old bastard's ego still making him unable to fully accept that someone had turned the tables on him so easily, made Courier Six smirk as well.

To be fair on Elijah, even Robert House who had correctly predicted the outbreak of the Great War considered Courier Six an unprecedented out-of-context problem that no amount of predictive modelling could have ever accounted for. His existence was just too statistically unlikely to have factored into any reasonable depth of analysis and the ripples of the changes he wrought made virtually all of the previous modelling done practically worthless.

In much the same way, things did not go quite as Ulysses had expected when Courier Six finally entered The Divide, not long before the Second Battle of Hoover Dam was fought. The nuclear missiles the former Frumentarii had painstakingly prepared being launched at targets in Legion territory instead of against the NCR was one thing, but being called a "painfully melodramatic, pitifully ill-informed, woefully under-educated, self-righteous asshole suffering from delusions of wisdom and insight" and then being subjected to an angry five hour lecture on history, politics, philosophy and game-theory which comprehensively undermined everything he _thought_ he knew was somewhat soul destroying.

After getting it all out of his system and feeling better after venting, Courier Six walked back out of The Divide followed by the eyebot clone he had named ED-E 2, or Eddie Too, leaving a dazed looking Ulysses still there holding the hastily scrawled out recommended reading list the other courier had forced on him.

Still at least Ulysses took it better than Robert House had when a glorified delivery boy pulled him up on the shortcomings of his own schemes. House had sulked for three days before eventually conceding the points made.

Subsequent to that Courier Six had nearly been crucified for correcting Caesar regarding Roman history, Latin grammar and the proper application of Hegelian Dialectic when visiting Fortification Hill for the first time with Arcade. Unfortunately for The Courier being a certified genius-savant didn't necessarily mean knowing when to keep your damn mouth shut.

It also didn't mean knowing not to argue theology with an irate Mormon warlord who also didn't being appreciate being called Imhotep.

Not that anyone in the Mojave took notice of the Legend of the Burned Man any more, not now that the Rain Man had returned.

* * *

 ** _Note from the author:_**

 _Acquired Savant Syndrome is a real thing, it's just staggeringly rare (and suffers from an unfortunate abbreviation). You've probably figured out where I got the idea for a genius savant in New Vegas from by now. Imagine Rain Man from the eponymous film only with social skills!_


End file.
